By the Grace of God
by Travithian Axile
Summary: A God should have the power of life and death. Thus far, all they have seen is the latter. A series of short stories revolving around Sephiroth, to be updated sporadically.
1. Zack: A Demonstration

**Title:**By the Grace of God  
**Characters:** Sephiroth, and others.  
**Rating:**PG  
**Word Count:**1254  
**Summary: **Gods should have the power of life and death. Thus far, all they have seen is the latter.

**Notes: **A bunch of short stories revolving around Sephiroth. Kind of like Sephiroth: The Chronicles, which I wrote forever and a day ago. I'm having trouble getting inspired for _Alone, _but that doesn't mean I hate writing in that setting…the reverse, actually. May or may not be CC compliant, because I liked Lazard but pretty much disliked the rest. Sorry for CC-lovers.

On Alone: I really, really want to rewrite it. I mean, reading back, I had Zack join only after the Wutai War! What was I smoking when I wrote that? *steams* Also, I want to put more Lazard, Rufus, and Turk in it. I'll see again when the semester ends. I actually have a fragment of Chater One Reboot hanging around somewhere…

**Zack: A Demonstration**

After the parade had ended and Zack had helped Cloud pick his jaw off the floor, they went off together to their favourite bar, Cloud leaning into the curve of Zack's arm with his eyes fixed dreamily skywards. "That," he said, "was the most amazing thing I ever saw." He sounded as though he had been struck in the head several times and was currently on his way out of an elixir rush. Zack rolled his eyes and flagged down the barmaid, choosing to ignore Cloud's rambling in favour of the pretty, dark-eyed girl. He ordered their drinks. Then he turned back and grinned as Cloud, realizing belatedly that he had lost his audience of one, gave him a mock-sullen glare that wasn't as effective as it could have been thanks to the bright chocobo-yellow hair that gleamed bright as the sun even in the smoggy air.

"Careful, Spikes," he said. "The way you keep going on, it's indecent." He put a hand to his heart and looked mournful. "I've never had to play the jealous boyfriend before. Wouldn't like to start."

Cloud smirked. "Cut it out, Zack. You already have a girlfriend."He rested his chin on his hand and sighed as loud and long as any lovestruck swain. Zack was tempted to crack a joke about the General and his rigorous training regimen, but decided against it. For someone who had survived a few years in the filthy underbelly of Shinra's military, Cloud had emerged somewhat tarnished but still surprisingly innocent. Innuendo flew over his oblivious spiky head no matter how Zack angled it. He settled instead for, "Your first time seeing the parade?"

Cloud smiled proudly. "You bet. Last year _and _the year before that I was stuck on guard duty on the other side of Midgar. I had to call in some favours, pull some extra time to free up my slot. But it was worth it." He sounded like a fresh new recruit instead of the jaded cadet he was supposed to be, and Zack had to hide a smile. But then, they all joined up for one reason only, didn't they…

"So," Zack said wickedly, leaning forward. "As a loyal subordinate of the General, I have to ask: what exactly are your intentions towards Sephiroth?"

Cloud subsided into a coughing fit. He wiped the back of one hand against his mouth and looked up, bug-eyed. "Zack, what the hell!" he sputtered. "I like him, but not _that _way!" He was blushing now, the redness of his cheeks clashing horribly with the blond hair. Zack gave in to temptation and ruffled the spiky hair affectionately. "Are you sure?" he pushed. "He's actually pretty lonely, you know. Cries in the night, cuddles Masamune, because the big mean President keeps him locked up in his castle when he isn't being shown off. Maybe what he needs is love to melt his icy heart." Zack seized Cloud's hand. "You are worthy, Cloud!" he cried, oblivious to the stares pinned on them. "Go forth! I choose you!"

Cloud yanked his hand away, hiding his face behind an exaggerated swig from his drink. "Clearly, standards for SOLDIER have fallen if they allow clowns like you into their ranks," he said with studied indifference into the glass. "I guess I had better sign up for the next round as soon as possible."

Zack's face fell. _Oh._ "Good luck, Cloud," he said with forced cheer, suddenly heavily aware of the treacherous ground between them, the black ice where one might slip and fall with lack of care. Still, he tried. "You know, this is pretty nostalgic. Not too long ago I was some kid from a backwater town with nothing but the shirt on his back and some coins saved up from odd jobs. But hey—life is unlikely. I worked hard, I got there. You're a lot like myself, Spike." He offered a smile. "Don't ever give up."

Cloud didn't smile. "Sephiroth was the youngest man to have ever made General," he said thoughtfully, turning his drink round and round so that the lamps threw interesting, shifting patterns of light and shadow through the glass onto the stained table. "He didn't give up. I won't either."

"It wasn't like I took a back seat in the Wutai War, you know," Zack pointed out, deliberately keeping his tone casual. He'd been teasing Cloud all this while about Sephiroth, but something about Cloud's expression was making him nervous. "I'm a much better role model, for one. I don't continually act like I have a Masamune stuck up my—"

"Oh, please, Zack." Cloud rubbed his forehead, irritated. "If you didn't find enough to admire today, you ought to have found other times. You served with him in the war—you would have died a dozen times over without him, right? Heck, Shinra mightn't even have won the war!" For a moment he looked stricken at the piece of blasphemy that had just left his mouth, and looked cautiously behind his shoulder, missing the frown that came over Zack's face.

It wasn't just the implication that his fighting skills weren't up to scratch—it was more…Zack shut his eyes. It was the _envy. _Good Mother Planet, was it really that much of a privilege to fight with Sephiroth? For Cloud, it seemed to be. "We watch each other's backs," he said absently. "It's the way of SOLDIER."

"So…" Cloud said. "Did you ever save his life, Zack?"

Zack shrugged, conceding the point. "Saved him a few scars, maybe. I owe him a lot more than he owes me," he admitted. "He's the best out of us all—"

And Cloud was nodding, in that satisfied manner, as though Zack was confirming some long-held theory of his, with that hungry look in his eyes, and all of a sudden Zack wanted to reach out and shake him, and say _open your eyes._

Yes, there was plenty to admire in the controlled environment of the parade grounds, and plenty more to admire when the man was in his natural element, if you didn't flinch from the sight first. Once you got past the blood and the gore and the screaming, watching Sephiroth fight _had _been rather a treat. Assuming you _could _get past all those formidable obstacles…

Zack liked and respected the General, he really did. Yet in the long nights after Wutai he hadn't been able to close his eyes without seeing the red imprinted on his eyelids and the lean black shadow moving through it all like a very lethal ghost…

It hadn't been a carnage. No, carnages were _messy. _Sephiroth was nothing if not efficient. It had been an extermination: man by man, woman by woman, child by child. It had been a very careful and thorough campaign and it—

Had been absolute Hell.

"Zack?" Cloud was saying. The boy waved a hand in front of his eyes. "You zoned out there for a minute. Looks like _you _daydream about him too, hypocrite." The boy was grinning, oblivious, and in an instant Zack's anger turned to sadness and some sort of self-rebuke. Cloud was young, he told himself, there was no harm to let him _believe…_

"Yeah," he said, raising his half-full glass with a smile. "You've got me there, Spikes. A toast to our vaunted General!"

And they clinked their mugs, drank to the General's health, and if Cloud noticed that Zack made sure to steer the conversation away from Sephiroth afterwards, he did not say anything.

_-end-_


	2. Cloud: An Awakening

**Title: **By the Grace of God  
**Characters:** Sephiroth, and others.  
**Rating: **PG  
**Word Count: **2385  
**Summary: **A God should have the power of life and death. Thus far, all they have seen is the latter.

**Notes: **I'm going with whatever random characters and events flash through my mind. There's no chronological order or anything. This is basically a space where I post all my non-Sephiroth POV one-shots without turning my profile into one long scrolling exercise ^_^

This story is a re-imagining of one of the most pivotal scenes in FFVII. Please skewer me if it's too unlikely.

**Cloud: An Awakening**

They should have been long gone by now.

Cloud paced, frantic and furtive; a liar and a stranger in his own hometown. The curtains were pulled to, a slit of red sunset light cutting through the gloom; so that he could pull off his hot, stinking helmet, let the stale air cool his flushed face. There was a dull roaring in his ears. He wanted out of this room; out of this town; out of the tides and currents of the old memories, closing like a trap above his head.

He'd left fancying himself a hero, like the youngest son in the old stories who always got the kingdom and the girl, but deep inside it'd always been about showing off, humbling those old geezers and grandmothers who spent their days peeping and prying, about everyone who thought him nothing more than a disturbed kid. Well, he'd been the one humbled in the end. He had gone to Midgar and signed up to be a guard on shitty pay and shittier prospects, and every one of his dreams had crumbled about him, fragile as a tower of cards.

(He remembered the first time he had seen Sephiroth fighting. A flurry of black and silver, unstoppable and powerful. How sacrilegious it had seemed then, to have once imagined he could ever have approached such perfection.)

And now he's just another helmet in the crowd, faceless and nameless. He hadn't known whether to be relieved or ashamed, when Tifa had come running down the road and looked only at the SOLDIERs, ignoring the guards who stood behind. She still had such faith in him, he thought, both touched and wounded; he settled, finally, for deep and profound shame.

Better if the last memory she had of him was a good one; he felt so far away now of the boy who had so confidently declared that he would become a SOLDIER. He hadn't experienced such determination in such a long time. Best, in fact, if he never set foot in this place again, and left old ghosts to sleep where they could.

Carefully, he parted the curtains and stole a quick peek for the hundredth time. To his indescribable relief he saw a familiar silhouette part from the hulking shadow of the Shinra mansion, and make its way down the road. Whatever business the General was engaged in was hopefully over. Once he would have been thrilled to have Sephiroth on an extended stay in his hometown. Now he had to resist the urge to hustle Sephiroth out of the gates and into the waiting vehicle, as though the General's legendary thousand-yard stare could pick out the stories and petty ambitions of Cloud Strife, lowly guard, from the yellowed cobblestones and the faces of the Nibel folk. Likely he wouldn't even care if he could.

(But Cloud cared. Sephiroth treated him with indifferent politeness; he'd be damned before he saw contempt in that cool gaze as well.)

He clattered down the stairs, past caring about propriety at this point; ignoring the pointed glance shot his way by the innkeeper. Pulled the heavy oaken door open, momentarily flooding the inn with brilliant red light. Sephiroth was a cutout figure against the sky, all black except where the sun touched his silver hair, and blazed crimson.

"General!" Cloud called, and the man turned his face to his; and then looked away. Cloud stopped in his tracks, flinching back at the poison in that look. He felt weak and helpless, gutted on the sharp hooks of his history all around him. Somehow worst was the expression on Sephiroth's face. His first, panicked thought was, _he knows! _

Sephiroth raised his hand, as though to seize the sun from the sky; red light welled from within his fingers. Cloud stared, an unknown horror building within him, as well as a growing sense of unreality. A song drifted out from the half-open door of the inn, changing abruptly to a news broadcast as someone tinkered with the radio. A dog barked. He must have fallen asleep while waiting for Sephiroth, and was dreaming, he told himself, wishing desperately that it was true. And all the while the light in Sephiroth's hand that was more than a light grew and grew, flaming like a second sun.

Or a spell cast from a Fire materia.

Cloud found his voice, quite suddenly. "Sephiroth! What are you doing?" His scream scraped his throat raw, though he was already closing the distance between them; as though, somehow, by raising his voice he could breach whatever unknown barrier that separated them. His hand reached, uselessly, for his rifle; he had left it back at the inn. Fat lot of good it would do anyway, against a man who was quite literally an army of his own.

Sephiroth ignored him. He curved his arm back, and in that moment Cloud had a sudden vision of an alien-snatcher movie he'd seen once, together with Zack in a crowded theatre, and had to stifle a strangled laugh: _Boy, Sephiroth is going to be so mad when he comes back to find what his body has done without him in charge..._

(His boots pounded the earth, in that twilight zone where time stretched out into an agonizing infinity. He had absolutely no idea what he was going to do when he reached Sephiroth.)

Flowers of flame bloomed from the inn's roof. The ancient timbers creaked and groaned. In a single, graceful movement, Sephiroth stepped away from Cloud's headlong rush, and cast another Fire spell. The ozone stench of spent magic filled the air. Cloud followed the movement of Sephiroth's arm reflexively. His eyes widened.

_Best if he never came home again..._

Filled with sick guilt, cursing the gods of irony, Cloud scrambled to his feet and ran for his old house, completely forgetting about Sephiroth. He flung the door open and promptly stepped into an orange-lit hell. He had to be thankful for his treated uniform even as he started to sweat heavily; it protected him from the worst of the heat. The magically-fuelled fire was moving with its creator's implacable purpose; much faster than an ordinary fire would. "Mom!" he yelled above the crackle-sputter of the fire, his heart stopping as he heard something crash upstairs. "Mom, it's me, Cloud! I'm coming to save you!"

As he sprang up the staircase, the memory of his promise to Tifa seared across his mind. _Shit. _But she had to understand, right? This was his _mother, _his last remaining family, and _oh gods why hadn't he even said goodbye, why had he slammed the door and run away once again?_

The landing shuddered ominously under his weight. Cautiously, he inched over to the door that led to his mother's room, looked in. Looked out again immediately. If she was in there... nausea writhed in his stomach, the remains of his breakfast fighting to get out. Maybe she had gone to visit some friends, still had a chance to escape the demon that Sephiroth had become. Maybe she hadn't even been in here and he had risked his life for nothing...already the old building was shaking and moaning about him like a violent ghost. Cloud turned and fled. The fire came after him with a vengeance. Halfway down the stairs the whole thing collapsed, together with the burning remains of the landing. Cloud hit the floor with a thud that sent a bright, throbbing burst of pain up his entire leg. His training hadn't been for nothing, though; he forced himself back up again and threw himself out the door as the entire building started to fall in on itself.

His head hit the ground, and his leg started to ache in earnest. All around him, people were screaming, their voices blending into a cacophony of the damned; the town he had hated so much was going up in flames. Cloud wanted to stay here forever, pressed into a fossil in the dirt; so he could not see the destruction he had so blithely brought into his former home. Gods, he had worshipped the man...

Quietly, Cloud began to cry inside his helmet. His mother had never had any friends in Nibelheim.

He was all alone now, cut adrift from the world of the familiar; he had always taken it for granted. Tifa was likely gone as well; Tifa, who had always been waiting for him, who had never given up hope even when he himself had. He had failed his mother, failed Tifa. What did anything matter now, except to join them as penance? If he lay here long enough, Sephiroth would probably come back to finish the job...

A warm hand on his shoulder. With a wild, inarticulate cry, Cloud twisted his body around, brought his fists up. Dropped them, as his eyes cleared and saw Zack's features, grimed with soot and dirt. "Zack!" he stammered. "You haven't—you didn't—" Overcome, he went limp, unresisting as Zack grabbed his hands and pulled him to a sitting position.

"No, I'm still normal." Zack raked his hands through his hair, making it stick every which way. In happier circumstances, Cloud might have smiled. "Oh, Cloud," Zack said, and his voice was as helpless as Cloud felt inside. "I'm so sorry. I know this is your hometown." He sounded so sad, such a shadow of his old self, that Cloud wanted to shake him and shout, _Not you too! _Zack _couldn't _act like this. Zack should be strong, and cheerful and confident—the hero that Cloud had wanted to be—only the second person that Cloud had ever believed in, after Sephiroth.

What was it about this place, that turned people inside out and took what was best about them away?

The anger lasted only a second. Zack had believed in Sephiroth too; how could he be expected to stay calm in a situation like this? Cloud didn't pull his hands away from Zack's grip; his hands were warm and comforting next to his own. "Sephiroth—he really did this?" He wanted a second opinion, wanted to disbelieve the evidence of his own eyes. But he couldn't wish away Zack's tired nod or the grimace that stretched over his mouth.

"Sephiroth..." Cloud whispered, looking at their linked hands. "How could you...?"

"I know," Zack said. "Listen, you should get away from here. Some old guy called Zangan is going around gathering up survivors. Shinra is bound to hear of this before long, and I don't know what they're going to do...but it's best not to stay. Cloud? Did you hear me?"

Cloud lifted his head slightly. "Zangan...? Tifa's teacher?" He focused again on Zack's face, felt a new stab of urgency. "Have you seen her around? Tifa, I mean. I gotta save her, I promised her..."

"I'm sorry, Cloud," Zack said. His voice was ruthlessly gentle. "There're many people missing...if you want to find her, your best chance is going with Zangan. He's bound to keep a special lookout for her. Okay? Do this for me, please?"

Wordlessly, Cloud nodded. Zack stood up, pulling him up. A bright glow in his hand; but it was only Cure materia, and Cloud closed his eyes as the tingling warmth ran through him, clearing away the clinging webs of exhaustion from his mind. "This is the best I can do," Zack apologized, stowing away the materia again. "Any more and you'll be higher than a drunk monkey."

"It's fine," Cloud murmured, testing his injured leg. It worked. He looked at Zack, tried a smile. "Thanks, Zack. I don't know what I'd do without you."

Zack smiled too. It looked a lot more natural on him than it felt on Cloud. "Like I said, just get to safety, all right? I last saw Zangan over there." He nodded towards the inn. "But if you can't find him, get to civilization first." Zack paused, and a shadow of doubt passed over his face. "But not to Midgar. Not a wise decision. "

Cloud listened; a cold sensation creeping through him. "What about you, Zack? Aren't you leaving too?"

Zack was silent. The coldness grew stronger, blowing like an arctic wind through Cloud's bones. "You're going after him, aren't you?"

"I'm the only one strong enough, Cloud," Zack said, almost apologetically. "I've got nearly as many freaky chemicals running through my veins as he does. Besides..." He squared his shoulders, looked at something far, far away. "He was my friend," he said. "I had a responsibility...I'm still responsible. He'd want someone to stop him."

"He's a madman," Cloud said. "Whatever he wanted...it's gone now." He knew he sounded angry, stupid and betrayed; he turned away from the pity in Zack's expression. "Zack...don't give yourself up for something like this. Didn't you always tell me not to be a hero? "

"I could have stopped this, Cloud," Zack said. "I failed. I'm sorry, I have to go now. He's heading to the reactor for that...that thing that started it all, and if I miss him it'll have been for nothing. Promise me you'll leave, find your girlfriend, have a bunch of kids and live happily ever after. Please." He sounded raw and desperate. Cloud hesitated. _You're possibly the only one left who I care about, _he wanted to say, but the words were too big, too weighty, and stayed stuck in his throat.

"Promise, damn you," Zack said, and Cloud couldn't deny him. "I promise."

"Good." Zack shook his hand, businesslike, already fading away. "Take care of yourself, Spikes. I'd know if you didn't." He turned away, and began to run, covering the distance with long, rough lopes. Cloud watched his outline become one with the smoke, closed the hand that Zack had shaken into a tight fist.

He had already broken one promise today. It wasn't as though his soul was going to Hell for something like this.

He waited a little more, to be safe. During this time, Nibelheim smoldered; the fire, starved, finally dying down into glowing embers among the ruin. Through the screen of smoke it seemed some great leviathan, beached at least; its gutted remains pointing at the heavens, like a plea to the gods cut brutally short.

Cloud picked his way through the rubble, and followed Zack.

-_end-_


End file.
